ed into what proved to be a long and wearisome
negotiation with a group of adventurers--gentlemen, merchants, and
others, seventy in number--for an advance of money to finance the
expedition. The Pilgrims entered into a partnership with the merchants
to form a voluntary joint-stock company. It was understood that the
merchants, who purchased shares, were to remain in England; that the
colonists, who contributed their personal service at a fixed rating,
were to go to America, there to labor at trade, trucking, and fishing
for seven years; and that during this time all profits were to remain in
a common stock and all lands to be left undivided. The conditions were
hard and discouraging, but there was no alternative; and at last,
embarking at Delfthaven in the _Speedwell_, a small ship bought and
fitted in Holland, they came to Southampton, where another and larger
vessel, the _Mayflower_, was in waiting. In August, 1620, the two
vessels set sail, but the _Speedwell_, proving unseaworthy, put back
after two attempts, and the _Mayflower_ went on alone, bearing one
hundred and two passengers, two-thirds of the whole, picked out as
worthy and willing to undertake the voyage. The _Mayflower_ reached the
waters of New England on the 11th of November after a tedious course of
sixty-five days from Plymouth to Cape Cod; but they did not decide on
their place of landing until the 21st of December. Four days later they
erected on the site of the town of Plymouth their first building.

The coast of New England was no unknown shore. During the years from
1607 to 1620, while settlers were founding permanent colonies at
Jamestown and in Bermuda, explorers and fishermen, both English and
French, had skirted its headlands and penetrated its harbors. In 1614,
John Smith, the famous Virginia pioneer, who had left the service of the
London Company and was in the employ of certain London merchants, had
explored the northern coast in an open boat and had given the region its
name. These many voyages and ventures at trading and fishing served to
arouse enthusiasm in England for a world of good rivers and harbors,
rich soil, and wonderful fishing, and to spread widely a knowledge of
the coasts from Newfoundland to the Hudson River. Of this knowledge the
Pilgrims reaped the benefit, and the captain of the _Mayflower_,
Christopher Jones, against whom any charge of treachery may be
dismissed, guided them, it is true, to a region unoccupied by Englis